10 best summer reads for August 2014

Need more ideas for your beach break? Don't go anywhere without packing one of these summer reads.

Deciding which books are worth precious room in your hand luggage can be a struggle. So, to make things easier for you, Red's literary editor, Viv Groskop, has picked her ten favourite summer reads of the month. From thrillerMunich Airport to the must-read debut, The Miniaturist, and the new-one from Orange Prize winner Linda Grant.

The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob

The story of a family divided across generations and cultures, which opens in 1979 in India. Twenty years later Amina returns to the New Mexico of her childhood to try and lay the ghosts of an explosive feud to rest. Gary Shteyngart is a fan of this New York author.

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

This is possibly the most hyped debut of the year. But it really deserves the attention. This is the story behind a 17th century "cabinet house", commissioned as a replica of a real home in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. But what if the replica is more real than it seems? One for fans of Girl with a Pearl Earring and .

Upstairs at the Party by Linda Grant | August Books | Books | Reviews | redonline.co.uk

Upstairs at the Party by Linda Grant

An intense, lyrical novel about friendship in the 1970s from the Orange Prize winning Grant (The Clothes on Their Backs). An androgynous couple who call themselves Evie/Stevie cause havoc amongst the fragile social groups at a new experimental university. When things go wrong on the night of a twentieth birthday party, no-one’s life will ever be the same again.

The Emperor Waltz by Philip Hensher

Challenging, bold, a tour de force. Three inter-locking stories about being in a small coterie separated from a larger world from the Booker Prize shortlisted author (The Northern Clemency). Moving between the Roman Empire, 1920s Germany and 1980s London, this is a celebration of eccentricity and the outsider and many are saying it’s Hensher’s best novel yet.

Munich Airport by Greg Baxter

An American expat in London takes a phone call - his sister in Munich has died in strange circumstances. She appears to have starved to death in her Berlin flat. How? Why? Three weeks later the grieving brother finds himself at the airport with his father and an American consular official, desperate to uncover what happened. A tense thriller reminiscent of Tom Rob Smith’s .

Thirst by Kerry Hudson

A will-they won't-they love story about an unlikely couple from the author behind the most talked-about debut of 2012: Tony Hogan Brought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma. Dave is a security guard at a department store. Alena is a shoplifter from Siberia. It’s not the ideal start to a relationship. Or is it? Funny, inventive, delightful.

Friendship by Emily Gould

This funny and illuminating debut comes highly recommended by Curtis Sittenfeld and Chad Hardbach. It’s about - surprise, surprise - the friendship between two women entering their thirties. Bev is living in a shared house, drowning in debt and newly pregnant. Amy is supposedly highly successful in the world of new media. Except she really doesn’t feel it. A clever, sharp novel about proper growing up.

We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride | August Books | Books | Reviews | redonline.co.uk

We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride

“There was a year of no desire. I don’t know why. Margo said I was depressed; Jill thought it was ‘the change.’” The lives of an immigrant boy, a soldier returned from Iraq and a middle-aged woman whose life is falling apart, collide in this remarkable debut. Packed with memorable characters and quirky details. Addictive.

The Woman in the Picture by Katharine McMahon

The author of The Crimson Rooms returns with this sequal, a Mitford-style 1920s literary thriller. Evelyn has now qualified as as a a soliticitor - one of the first women to do so - but her life remains full of conflict. And just as just as two new cases threaten to engulf her, she receives an unexpected proposal. Fantastic historical fiction.

Landing Gear by Kate Pullinger

Harriet leads a dull life as a suburban housewife. She has a husband with no interest in her and a son who won’t talk to her. The one day on her way to the supermarket, a stowaway drops out of the landing gear of an airplane onto her car, and survives. He’s starving, freezing and half-dead. She has to take him home, doesn’t she? An extraordinary idea, brilliantly executed.

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